The Coming Chip Wars
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This is exactly the narrative that is held in the mind of every Chinese about the Opium War and the downfall of the late Qing and the Japanese. These things have long historical memories and human grudges really can span generations and generations (look at Hungry for instance).
From there it's very slippery slope to a race war, i.e. Chinese vs Anglos, I can easily imagine confiscating ethnic Chinese property in the U.S. and putting them internment camps in the next twenty years and attacks against the "whites" in China.
Ultimately this is about how to co-exist and share resources on this planet so we can solve problems on the planetary scale. Otherwise we will just become one of those species in this universe that failed to launch because they destroyed themselves on their own planet before inventing starflight.
Up until the past 2-3 years, most Americans did not care about China as a whole. Just another country we do business with.
Someone tell US leadership this. It is sad that China is rapidly addressing their GHG emissions via unprecendented EV and alternative energy programs.
How would the PRC succeed in convincing TSMC to stop producing chips for the US, short of military action? The PRC is Taiwan's primary military adversary, and the US is Taiwan's primary military supplier and ally. IIRC, TSMC even recently agreed to build a foundry on US soil (which is kinda surprising, since that reduces the incentive of the US to defend Taiwan in a military conflict with the PRC).
Because US recognize both mainland China and Taiwan as one 'China', without specifying which. The internet would like to tell you that China and Taiwan are totally different country but US policy doesn't recognize that.
And changing that policy one week into the conflict does not look good on the optics.
This is a 70s era policy that is increasingly paid just lip service to.
US policy does de facto recognizes Taiwan. For instance, it has an embassy there, it just doesn't call it one; and it sells Taiwan weapons over PRC objections.
The only reason the US doesn't recognize Taiwan de jure is a Cold War era compromise with PRC diplomatic policy, and the fact that the current ambiguity works reasonably well for all parties right now. IIRC, some US political factions advocate for formally recognizing Taiwan (for example: https://twitter.com/ambjohnbolton/status/1250501579070980099).
There's nothing easier to do than for China to point to this policy and say America is sending troops to an internal conflict in China.
I'd say the existence of the de facto recognition is more significant than the lack of de jure recognition. There's no real central authority in international relations, so the official statements and pieces of paper are pretty meaningless without the de facto actions of the countries in question back them up.
> There's nothing easier to do than for China to point to this policy and say America is sending troops to an internal conflict in China.
It's easy for the PRC to say whatever it likes, who else cares is a different matter.
So, no, this issue is not resolved, regardless of whoever says it is.
It is an executive communiqué [1]. There is no treaty. "One China" is based on a statement of convenience. It could literally be reversed with a tweet.
What isn't just buttered-up memos are the Taiwan Relations Act [2] and Taiwan Travel Act [3]. Unlike the joint communiqué, these are U.S. law.
Lots of Americans live in Taiwan. Taiwan hosts scores of American-made military assets defending it from Beijing. And high-ranking Americans are almost constantly in Taiwan. If Beijing attacked Taiwan, these would be among the collateral damage.
> say America is sending troops to an internal conflict in China
Everyone says everything when war breaks out. If Beijing blew up a bunch of Taiwanese assets, taking out a handful of Americans in the process, I see no obstacle to strong political support in America to intervene.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Communiqué
> treating Taiwan as a sub-sovereign foreign state equivalent
Also nothing from [2] or [3] guarantees American military intervention. Essentially, [2] and [3] solidified the status of Taiwan as 'not a full sovereign'.
This was never the goalpost. The original comment contrasted the legal flimsiness of the joint communiqué with the Acts underlying the U.S.-Taiwan relationship.
> solidified the status of Taiwan as 'not a full sovereign'
Not really. The Acts give deference to the executive branch.
Usually, the U.S. can't sell fighter jets to non-sovereign customers. The Acts created exceptions for Taiwan, so the President could continue paying lip service to Beijing while treating Taiwan like a sovereign nation.
I'm not saying these examples were right or just, I'm just saying I think a statement like that from China would have zero impact on the U.S. defending Taiwan.
If you think Vietnam War was bad, try a war in China.
If China were losing badly enough, they'd throw the nuclear card on the table. It presents a difficult scenario overall, as China can always draw a stalemate by using that whenever convenient: stop or I'll use nukes; it's the ultimate homefield advantage. If you're winning away from your home turf, and you're under threat of being nuked, your population will never support pressing forward (it would never be worth it, gain a bit of foreign land temporarily and lose your cities).
Maybe not so much. The PRC threatens automatic military action if Taiwan repudiates that policy, as it sees it as a move for formal independence. So Taiwan has been forced to pay lip service to that policy whether it truly believes in it or not:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Political_status_...
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Taiwan_independen...
The political situation of Taiwan is very weird, as many of the "official" positions are contrary to the actual positions.
That's the 'beauty' of geopolitics: Do anything then switch and do the opposite as long as it suits your interests.
- direct military invasion
- disinformation campaign
- trade war with Taiwan
- nationalization of old fabs in China
- missile strikes on TSMC facilities in Taiwan
Wouldn't that be all out war? Then why stopping half way? If the goal is denial/disruption of chip production.
'Missiles'? Really? Anyone can theoretically use 'missiles' to knock out the production capacity of some competitor's fabs.
It would be fatal to China's ambitions in everything because the world's reaction would be quite strong.
China has a lot of people upset around the world, but a lot of voices are muted because of perceived repercussions, but something 'over the top' would encourage all of those voices to come out at once.
Even Russia would have to 'think again' about their relationship.
But didn't they do so through proxies, which gives them at least a little deniability?
Yeah but PRC would totally do it. They already gave the go-ahead to their allies to attack U.S. partners with missiles, a first-party strike is really not hard to imagine.
Feel free to disagree. I expect a storm of downvotes. Oh well.
And it's pretty questionable whether the USA could even do much to stop a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. They could perhaps harass it a little, at great distance to avoid the otherwise inevitable loss of their carriers, but the success or failure of any invasion would largely depend on Taiwan's military and political/national will.
In addition to its estimated 10-15 road-mobile DF-31 ICBMs, China has 6 active submarines with 12 missiles each. Even assuming a 50% reliability rate that's 30 cities. The USA would be utterly devastated.
Russia might then decide to simply finish the job.
Your ideas are just so ridiculous I don't need to argue further.
As to the subs the latest China sub is the type 094 which cannot reach the continental US with their current load of JL-2 (7200km) in their current patrol zone. Also they are pretty noise and easily tracked. JL-3 (9000KM) are not in wide service.
The US has a further 10600 or so warheads on ICBM. China’s total count is around 400.
The logical game theory response is for the US to go full nuclear day 0. That is what every general and every theorist in the pentagon will advise the president. I am not saying it’s a good idea, but the logic is sound if you except the fact that the US would be unwilling to allow the dollars position to be challenged.
The leadership of China is pretty damn smart and they know this. I applauded them in playing the long game, something which the last few American governments have forgotten how to do. Our inability to think long term will bring us down, not China.
But all of this is ridiculous. Yes of course the USA has more warheads. They could indeed cause catastrophic destruction in China. No-one said they couldn't. The point is that China can and would counter-strike, with devastating results. This is the whole point of nuclear deterrence. No-one believes they couldn't, except apparently you with your completely unrealistic fantasies about the USA's godlike superiority. The USA as you know it would be gone.
And you somehow believe the USA would trigger this frigging holocaust to protect its image, or the US Dollar? What Dollar? The Fed's a smoking crater. Just delusional.
Here is a very detailed story on warhead guidance and accuracy and how harden targets are destroyed. It is quite interesting.
https://thebulletin.org/2017/03/how-us-nuclear-force-moderni...
Every fixed ICBM location in the world is known to all the major powers. You can find a pretty good list on fas.org. It will including things like year built, what was the state of the art at that time, yield needed to destroy, etc. Also there are tons of research papers on first strike imbalance and launch reaction time done by well respected scientist and think tanks available on the internet. Reaction time is more important because most silos today cannot survive an accurate strike so you have to launch before the misses hit. If they could then why build mobile launchers？
It’s not tracking a truck, it is tracking a very large thing that is easy to follow that has to exit a know location for servicing over its life time. The NRO has 60+ years of experience tracking way more items then the 30 DF31/31A mobile launchers that China has. The USSR had 1000s for them to practice on.
This has zero to do with god like powers or some unreasonably belief in US superiority and everything to do with math and technology. The logic is very simple, a protracted conventional war with China makes no sense as it will end up as a nuclear war, so if a war starts a massive first strike day 0 is the most logical path. And yes, I do believe the US would do so to protect its place in the power structure of the world and I am a rational person who would love to see all nuclear weapons eliminated along with the need of any or us to maintain large militaries.
The planners do not think in emotion. They do the math and odds and there is a calculation that says an overwhelming first strike has acceptable risk and Guam, et.al. that the smaller weapons could hit are an okay trade off for not allowing a hit on the continental US along with complete destruction of Chinese forces. There are 1000s of people in the US Defense Department who’s only job is to calculate all of the possible scenarios, including this one and wrap it all up in a nice summary of casualties (explosion + long term fallout given winds, etc.) and probabilities of success and they do so without the emotional reaction that you have. It’s quite scary if you really think about it.
China may hate Japan historically for the atrocities in WW2, but they also fear them for the same reasons.
Go on then, boycott us! I bet you can't, we make EVERYTHING.
China is Nestlé on steroids. What is anyone really going to do to China? What country can continue to function without Chinese manufacturing?
If the Chinese political situation broke down to the point that they were bombing fabs in Taiwan, there will be plenty of ways to destabilize their efforts.
But all of realistic options listed entail the fatal political defeat of Taiwan, mostly through military action. Existential political threats usually end up as military conflicts, one way or another.
The only option that doesn't involve military action is the disinformation campaign, but that's pretty far fetched.
Like, a full on boycott.
Maybe Taiwan can sell their 150B in products to Americans?
I think China's greatest threat comes from within. And the brinkmanship is at supply-side structural reform VS unemployment.
The risk has never been this high, given
1. belt and road initiative is already half-busted
2. drastic drop of foreign demand due to pandemic
3. cry for decoupling from all wealthy nations
And see this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Q8oQGBcFdo
My point is: the Chinese government has been trying to tell people that they don't need to work in the city. They could work in a rural farm and lead a simple life, albeit earning close to nothing.
They’re in low value jobs that keeps themselves busy, but doesn’t bring in much profit for China, except for Foxconn and Apple.
Apple benefits from cheap Chinese labor, while selling their iWares at inflated prices.
What China can do instead, is to retarget these factory workers to work in software development, or AI grunt work.
Currently, AI requires a lot of manual human data labeling, in order to identify objects.
China can utilize this already cheap and organized factory labor, to build up an object inference database. That way, the AI systems of today, can cross reference against this inference database, to identify the object.
This inference database literally becomes, the new oil of the AI age.
And through a lot of sweat equity, China can possibly dominate this key area for the AI future.
Maybe this is why 5G is so important? The lower latency of 5G would usher in the AI age.
The western world is so focused on Foxconn, and its “supposed benefits” to China. But the benefits are meager. The biggest beneficiary is Apple itself.
China should let Foxconn and other low value industries go, in order to free themselves to work on higher value pursuits.
The other side of the coin is what will happen to Apple and the American economic system?
They will have to pick up and relocate to other third world countries, for their cheap labor. Vietnam, India, Mexico? Sure. But a lot of other mid level goods come from China.
If the supply chain is stopped, then everyone is impacted. The whole thing stops.
Apple’s stock price will crater. Supposedly. But the Fed is so busy juicing the market, and Apple can just repurchase their shares, that they can financially engineer themselves out of this stock meltdown scenario.
But it's not about soul, it's about money; that's what shareholders care about. There's also the question of security - cooperating with China could lower the risk of being invaded, simply because there would be nothing to gain by doing so. (Although one of the comments below explains pretty well why invading Taiwan would be pointless anyway.)
So, if there's one good thing that comes out of this, and I'm sure there will be many, it has to be that manufacturing returns to all advanced countries. No longer should we outsource nearly all of our manufacturing to various parts of Asia. Nothing against Asia, but we've known for a long time that it is high risk to put all of your "eggs", of any kind, in one basket -- it's very risky for everyone if we concentrate all of those abilities into a handful of countries in one part of the world. In might be cheaper in the short term, but it could be devastating for all of us in the long run.
This time it was a pandemic, but next time it could be something that destroys those countries and the timeline to rebuild is years. The survival of the planet may depend on our ability to manufacture. It already does in some ways, but the timeline is rather long at this point. What if the danger is imminent? Do we really want most high (and low) tech manufacturing concentrated in one part of the world? No, we need to spread it globally for the potential benefit of everyone.
The same way you balance your investment portfolio between different types of assets, we need to balance our investment in the future of the planet across the globe as well. Sure, some assets aren't as profitable, but you still hang on to them for security, stability and risk reduction.
They've got 14nm in risk production, and are making good progress on something equivalent to 10nm TSMC (that they're calling 7nm, but feature sizes are made up anyway). And perhaps most importantly China is making good progress on in country EUV litho steppers to cut ASML out of the picture too.
The next generation of strategic advantage is in the software that runs on this hardware. We really need to start thinking harder about how we protect highly-complex and strategically-important software IP from theft, because theft of software is pretty much immediate and absolute. I have personally started to pull some of my experimental projects I would otherwise keep public into private repositories because of these sorts of concerns. I do not want to enable the CCP in any way whatsoever.
Hypothetically, if your 7nm chip supply was constrained because of war, but you were able to optimize the software that runs on that hardware by 15-30%, you could theoretically run it on a 14-22nm chip with a similar performance envelope. The larger process tech is easier to manufacture and you will more likely have domestic facilities which can accommodate. Anything that does not require EUV is instantly 100x easier to produce. Additionally, the more advanced process tech is arguably less advantageous in a military setting, as these chips are highly vulnerable to electromagnetic warfare relative to older process technology.
It's typical for read-only source-code access to be available to everyone inside the corporate network, so if any device used by anyone with such access is compromised (or if the person is themselves compromised), so is the source-code.
Set up factories outside of Asia Pacific with that money.
Think about the Fair Trade laws that aim to prevent large companies from dropping their prices to below cost to drive small plantations out of business. There's no reason china needs to make 1,000% profit on their latest CPU when they can sell at a very low price, and put US manufacturers out of business.
And FTA:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-10/u-s-lawma...
I just barfed a little in my mouth. This is what is so eff'd up about the US. Semicon stock prices drove the creation of millions of millionaires over the last 2 decades, and now they need a handout.
Long- or short-term investor return?
Given the situation and prospect, anyone who still sticks to this principle of short-term investor return is at good the capitalism in the worst form, or at worst plain irrationality.
$25B is about the right number as well, the challenge will be related to how efficiently it is spent.
There just seems to be something fundamentally wrong here.
Semicon companies have been massive wealth generators for almost 4 decades, and how all of that wealth was genreated by clearly dubious means (Intel's lawsuits are legendary, as is there attempts at shuffling money out of the US buy building fabs in other countries to avoid tarrifs). But now they need taxpayer dollars to be competitive? Sure, the state of the US economy might be at risk, but that doesn't square with the industry leaders' malign actions in the past 20 years.
It's like if you were getting beat up by a bully every day on your way to school, and he took your lunch money. Then one day a bigger bully from another town shows up, and the school starts paying your bully your lunch money, plus additional money from your allowance, to beat up the other one to protect the school (a bigger risk), when they didn't care about protecting you as an individual (a non-important risk).
The same could be said for access to manufacturing for Huawei vs US companies.
That’ll show everyone that America means business when it comes to territorial possessions!
He might even win a Nobel Peace Prize for doing so. LOL.
China is claiming vast regions which are currently regarded as 'international waters', or worse 'sovereign waters of other nations' as it's own, sovereign territory.
The US is not declaring the Bahamas to be 'US Territory', for example.
Not only that, the US Navy ensures that everyone - including China, Russia, Iran etc. can have 'safe passage' in international waters, and especially Panama Canal, Suez, Gulf etc. - which is quite literally the opposite of China's intentions in the S. China sea.
The issue will be in areas wherein China can claim supremacy without much resistance, for example, off the coast of weaker neighbours in the region.
It's a pretty bold ploy - at the same time, I actually believe that the 'chip wars' will be more important!
I do agree that coastal waters of certain ASEAN countries, which are practically defenseless, are at a significantly higher risk.
The US Navy defends the interests of the US largely by defending allies and promoting rules-based order. This is constantly the norm, day in day out, around the world. You see it in Panama Canal, Suez, especially the Gulf.
Them, as a great power, wanting to have an open sea route that they control isn't really that outrageous as far as how great powers act.
The US has bases in Korea, Japan etc. by invitation of those nations and it not 'control' any of the waters or territories there.
Sovereign territories are controlled by sovereigns, and international waters are international - anyone can use them.
The US doesn't even have a large enough fleet to project force or truly patrol over there, though it does so tacitly (i.e. where there is a problem, there is focus).
"wanting to have an open sea route that they control isn't really that outrageous as far as how great powers act."
China is declaring vast areas as de-facto sovereign territory, which is far beyond 'control' it's literally 'ownership'.
All international 'sea routes' are effectively open, thanks in large part to the US Navy (and others of course).
China is absolutely free to help patrol waters and to ensure international laws are respected - in fact - if that were the behavior of China, everyone would be relieved - but that is not what is happening at all.
You can draw up as many technicalities as you'd like, but those technicalities are tools to serve power. They're tossed the second they aren't useful, by whichever country that can afford it.
It would be monumentally stupid for the Chinese to just assume that we'll faithfully honor "international waters neutrality" forever, especially at the moment when they're eclipsing us economically.
Yes - let's 'go there'.
The difference between having a strategic relationship with the US, versus one with China, is literally embodied in the difference between North and south Korea.
The US defeated a pariah nation, Japan, and helped build it into a highly advanced, free nation, with whom the US enjoys a very positive strategic relationship. And FYI Japanese could ask the US to leave at any time, but that won't happen because of course Japan absolutely wants to maintain their partnership.
North Korea is the ugliest, totalitarian 'prison state' in the worst in the world, maybe one of the worst the world has ever seen. That's 'Team China'.
"It would be monumentally stupid for the Chinese to just assume that we'll faithfully honour "international waters neutrality" forever, especially at the moment when they're eclipsing us economically."
Not only is this wrong, it also does not justify their actions.
First - so long as there is no 'hot war' the Chinese will be able to ship their goods and navigate waters as they please. It won't matter if they have a 'bigger economy' than the US.
Second - none of this justifies grabbing territory. As I mentioned, if China were to use its navy to actively support open navigation of international waters, then the world would welcome that. We'd all be working with on the issue. But that is not the case: China has Imperial ambitions, and if it means putting a few more million Muslims in concentration camps, then so be it.
It's really sad to see these constant duplicitous China arguments. That it's not perfectly black and white does not make it entirely murky either - China is a pariah state.
This is outright revisionism. When US bases were established in Japan, German and Korea, the countries were effectively client states of the United States.
I see children in adult bodies who whine to compel others to fix their own problems. I see people unwilling to entertain conversation that may challenge their point of view. And parents, well into their old age, seem to be content in keeping this status quo. They acquiesce to the complaining, they solve their children’s problems. And the tools of being self sufficient and goal oriented seem to suffer.
If I buy into one of the points of the article- that there are people in China who are in positions of power who are unified, know what they want, know where they are, and thus will figure out to get there- and I think about how my peer group would respond, I get worried. The panacea would be for my generation to become just as tenacious in seeking our own goals. But I just don’t see what transformations would have to happen to make this a reality.
P.S. I will continue improving the community of people within arm’s reach. I think that’s all us motivated people can do.
That sounds like you are comparing your (probably average) peer group to an imagined group of people in positions of power. Doesn't seem like a fair comparison.
I completely agree with the author about the vital importance of this technology, it should be considered as a resource.
The long-term solution is not military, but industrial.
There is nearly an unlimited supply of money for projects that are guaranteed to return a profit - especially today with the bond market desperately searching for yields.
...so the moment asian chip factories become untenable - we will have fabe here in the US overnight. As an example, Israel built its own Intel fabs in under 3 years.
There is nearly an unlimited supply of money for projects that are guaranteed to have positive cash flow - especially today with the bond market desperately searching for yields.
Plenty of companies are loaded up with debt with negative eps with positive cashflow.
I believe this distorts the gymnastics of "You can't really compare a cost which returns zero profit versus one that turns a profit" when many companies haven't turned a net profit since their existence.
Even if this triggered a longer conflict, the US could just buy through other countries that can buy from TSMC. Or just start using consumer off-the-shelf stuff. I'm fairly certain my gaming PC could guide a missile. There's lots of data centers in the US to pull from too.
If we lose all access to buying chips tomorrow, how does that affect our weapons?
I am told that TSMC has a poison pill setup for their fab(s) for the case where the PLA takes Taiwan by force, which makes sense in the same way that a "driver carries less than $20 in cash" window sticker does.
That's the stake China is putting on the table.
War is about more than just hard power.
All of our weapons systems have undergone significant modifications and upgrades since then, which make heavy use of modern computing. Missile seekers can take advantage of this increased computing power to better track targets, especially when being jammed. We could probably develop replacements for these that used less high-end chips, but that will take time and would probably still result in worse performance, and there will likely be certain features that would have to be dropped.
> If China somehow got complete control over TSMC to the point they no longer supplied the US, it doesn't take much to sabotage the factories
This is true, but it isn't guaranteed, and the PLA could stockpile a whole bunch of chips pre-war to satisfy their wartime production ordnance needs for a least a little while. While this is viable, it becomes a race to the bottom where neither side has access to advanced chips, and is stuck with whatever the advanced weapons they had stockpiled.
> I'm fairly certain my gaming PC could guide a missile
They need some custom chips, for a couple regions. First is they need to do some digital signal processing stuff that is implemented in hardware. Second is that the chip needs to be rugged: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_computers#MIL_standar...
> If we lose all access to buying chips tomorrow, how does that affect our weapons?
Communication is a critical component of war. More processing power can enable better cryptoanalysis used in offence, and to a degree, better ciphers used in defense. Advanced chips definitely give advantages in cyberwar.
And we should be investing billions in the US factories.
Either that, or do a complete 180 and go back to the globalization mode where we play nice with China. I mean, if there could somehow be a non-violent cultural and political integration that would be ideal.
It seems like we are going to get one of two extremes though. Either people who think that China is ultimately irredeemably evil will stay in power or people who don't care what China does as long as they can make money there come back into power.
Neither one of those extremes really seems like a good approach though. Both seem to kind of be making things worse.
I believe the only safe outcome will involve very difficult cultural,political and technological integration. The economic integration to the degree it exists might be a stepping stone to that stuff but it seems we have seen it's limitations.
I don't have faith that people will recognize the depth of the problems, understand it and address it is a sane way. Most likely outcome still seems to be a horrific war.
This type of thing is why I have recently been thinking that actually it may be best if we just go full speed ahead with the AGI development. Because if we could have a safe world, then I would say the opposite, that we should avoid creating a new species that makes us obsolete. But now it may be a race to create this new species before our own poor organization destroys us or sends us back to the iron age.
20th century: https://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/creatures/pages/russians.html (my russian is atrocious, but it's good enough to know the story given has obviously been elaborated in the telling before it hit this web page)
21st century: https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/FP_2020...
(much of Blank's "secret history" of SV is an outline that chips have been strategic since before they existed https://steveblank.com/secret-history/ )
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2016/02/07/2...
Because it surely has strategic value.
edit: latrare brings up another very important point. The patents surrounding the processes to refine RE materials. Take a look at who owns most of them...
Now, the irony is that if American companies want to start rare earth refining, then they must pay China for the use of those refinement patents.
Oh the irony.
Unless some American senator want to invalidate all of China’s patents on grounds of National Security. Oh the hypocrisy.
In fact the Huawei chip regulation was attractive precisely because it doesn't impact much in the way of actual products right now. The overwhelming bulk of Huawei's revenue is derived from simple manufactured products using semiconductors from non-PRC sources. Their domestic chip design was a fledgling industry still.
...how? Taiwan is even more of an adversary to the PRC than the USA.
This will end up with China exceeding US fab capacity and supplying chips to all non US & European countries in 10 years.
I'm not making a value judgement, I'm saying that if a country is going to try to hold you back by limiting your access to technology, you just develop your own.
you're implying that the author has violent predispositions?
Why? Assuming people thinks that China will invade Taiwan just to take over TSMC, then what?
1) TSMC doesn’t build the tools that builds the microchips. In fact, they probably don’t even know how to build it, or even know the optical science to research and develop it. That dubious honor goes to ASML, and some other Japanese companies. But ASML, the euro company is currently in the lead for 5nm. TSMC just knows how to use their machine, and to get better at it. And to be clear, ASML doesn’t know how to manufacture the chips like TSMC can, so both companies need each other, in a symbiotic type of relationship.
2) In the event of war, then the losing side can just bomb TSMC factories. Then everyone is screwed. No more advanced microchips for anyone.
3) If China succeeds in invading Taiwan, then the USA will just force ASML to stop selling their equipment to China, like they already do now. So, China is back at square one. They might have the current technology, but no ability to advance to newer technologies.
The only viable solution for China, is to build their own chip making tools, and fabrication factories. Thus removing ASML and TSMC from the equation completely. Also, they will gain independent Intellectual Property rights and patents to their own indigenous R&D.
The American government is apparently thinking that China doesn’t have the skills to do this.
Also, given how obscenely expensive a war would be, couldn't China save money by just hiring the entirety of TSMC's and ASML's technical staff at 10x the market rate for ten years?
Paying a premium to headhunt technical experts is a tried-and-true method of catching up to a front-runner. In fact, both Taiwan and South Korea did this, poaching underpaid Japanese talent.
Yes. ASML is integrated into the dollar-based global financial system, so it will have to respect American financial sanctions. This is the same way that such sanctions against Iran and North Korea work.
An interesting aspect though: I think the technological superiority of ASML is a big asset in these discussions. e.g. If the US would follow up on a threat of sanctions against ASML (e.g. banning US companies from working with ASML) it would hit the US semiconductor industry quite hard (particularly Intel), while non-US players (e.g. TSMC) could continue producing with euv.
In effect, they would have to go much further to keep some similarity of a level playing field: e.g banning all products containing chips produced on ASML machines. That would hit a lot more companies, many of them US based too. Creating even more reasons for the US Gov to not to take such drastic steps.
Therefore I expect that it is much more likely they'll use pressure on the EU / NL government systems to force the behaviour they want, compared to economic sanctions vs ASML.
> ASML is integrated into the dollar-based global financial system, so it will have to respect American financial sanctions
I'm no expert, but if a company wants to pay ASML in Euros, I'm pretty sure they can accept euros. The dollar is convenient, not a requirement.
The implication is not about accepting payment. The western banking system can and has blackballed firms that took money from people the US didn't like.
Companies rarely exchange money directly, though. They usually have a bank do it on their behalf, and those banks are subject to the laws of the countries they operate in.
You also have to avoid SWIFT, since the US controls that too.
The Europeans just set this up to avoid these issues with Iran:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrument_in_Support_of_Trade...
It took nearly a year and a half between the founding and the first payment.
On one hand, they brag about how a company in China took apart an ASML machine, and replicated every component, but it didn't work.
But I'm sure ASML knows that they'll try again. They have at least a limited interest in keeping their technology from being stolen.
That's assuming those folks would want to move to China and work there. If strategic tensions are increasing to the point where war is feared and China uses this as an alternative, who would want to move there and risk becoming a hostage?
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/China-tech/Taiwan-loses-3-0...
Netherlands / ASML is subject to Wassenaar Arrangement which US can ultimately trigger to ban dual use tech sales.
Probably doesn't make much of a difference though.
How much needed are further advancements? Aren't we reaching the limits of shrinkage and clock speed? Computers can be used for years because there are no more huge increases. It may cost some more energy, but the current technology should be good enough for 10 to 15 years until China has its own knowledge.
TSMC has investnents in many tool makers, and has own tooling RnD.
Reverse engineering is just working backwards, until you get to parity. Certainly, this will get you far, but you’ll always be a step behind the leader. But what you really need, is to advance and take the lead.
In order to achieve that, you need the scientific process here to understand the fundamental basics. Then you can build on that and expand.
But, what we know is that the Dutch company, ASML, has a tool that can achieve 5nm.
To China, this means that the engineering is possible. They just have to throw more time, money, and people at it. They don’t even need to follow the same techniques as ASML, they just have to get at the same end result, the 5nm. Solve the basic science, and it will allow you to achieve the engineering. Then, they can expand, and target 3nm, or whatever the next technology is. Carbon nanotubes based CPUs?
And I'm inclined to believe it: TSMC guaranteeing that PRC would fail to capitalize on their assets if they invaded Taiwan is a primary national security concern for the Republic of China.
During WW2, a short additional tunnel was dug above the tunnel entrance, to be filled with explosives in order to blow it up. This was so that if Japan invaded, the Japanese military would not be able to use the railway line to help them invade Sydney. The feared Japanese land invasion never came, the explosives were never detonated, but the tunnel dug for the explosives is still there today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Interior_of_World_War_2_d... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Interior_of_World_War_2_d...
I wouldn’t be surprised if Taiwan has a similar setup in place.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stay-behind [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio
On the other hand, perhaps there are other ways to destroy a silicon fab than explosives?
The author does point out that it will take years for any new replacement to reach TMSC's capacity.
SMIC is in 14nm risk production, and aggressively working on EUV.
We're still several years from that, but probably not several decades from it.
For instance a great question is if the EU thinks a fab is worth the effort? Probably not in today's climate, and would most likely be a sign of the end of US geopolitical domination if they do feel the need.
Most EU countries have fabs, even small countries like Switzerland and Austria although they're not as cutting edge as TSMC.
Like the Interstate Highway system, basically.
Yes but this would take a very long time, so from the OP's "strategic" POV it's just not relevant in the short-to-medium term. The supply chain for reasonably "advanced" electronics (the sorts you'll need if you want a usable 4G/5G mobile network, etc.) is extremely complex and any single country would be at a disadvantage if they tried to develop every part of it domestically. Plus China would also have plenty of catch up to reach state-of-the-art tech.
I don't think this argument works in 2020.
There are dozens of fabs in China on line and coming on line.
Sure, fabs are expensive: $5B for 7nm fab, plus what, a billion more for talent? China is throwing trillions at this.
The other claim implicit in this argument is that China isn't smart enough, like there's a monopoly of fab engineers: only the smart ones live in the US and work for Intel and AMD. That is nonsense bordering on racism (chinese are too dumb to compete).
The rest of the supply chain: sort, test, packaging, assembly... is trivial by comparison. And Singapore does almost all of this for Intel due to lax environmental regulations: die are shipped from the US fabs in Oregon, Santa Clara and Arizona to Singapore for the final steps before being shipped back for sale. Guess where all of that post-manufacturing machinery comes from? Yup: China. Even the test equipment.
It's almost like most of the people on this thread don't realize china makes their own CPUs, chipsets, and motherboards that we never even see or hear about unless you go to ISSCC, HotChips, or Embedded World.
Stroll through here looking at wafer size and technology:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabricat...
EDIT: edited for snark and clarity.
"The other claim implicit in this argument is that China isn't smart enough, like there's a monopoly of fab engineers: only the smart ones live in the US and work for Intel and AMD. That is nonsense bordering on racism (chinese are too dumb to compete)."
They are SoC (system on chip). They come loaded with peripherals, like NICs, UARTs, I2C, SPI, ADC, RTC, crypto, DSP, Ai acceleration, etc. The CPU usually takes up a small fraction of the die and isn't the selling point, the integration and IO fabric is just as important.
I don't see what the US can gain from the war.
Is there actually fab factory being setup by alibaba?
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loongson#Loongson_microprocess...
In China, there was always an ongoing debate on if we should design our own chip for quite a while.
From the economical perspective, there's no point in making our own because it would cost a lot, for the first few years there would be no profit, and the very likely not cheap to produce while not as fast as Intel and Qualcomm.
From a risk management perspective, of course, it's useful if China was sanctioned. Actually, there were several attempts many years ago, and the government invested in those projects. Eventually, people called out those are frauds because they just re-label existing chips from those well-known brands without doing anything. After several times of this kind of scandal, people started to lose trust and faith in this, and the debate died down for quite a while, until now.
While a lot of people in the US are debating if they should bring critical industries back to the US this year, Chinese people brought back the debate about if they should develop their own chip almost as soon as Huawei was listed on the 'entity list'. This time more people seem to agree that they should have their own chips, and many people even think it as a threat to the Chinese nation because it seems to be one throat to choke (China become more or less a nationalist country during the suffering century of humiliation, plus some communist legacy, thus the sense of crisis and the reaction).
It says that Huawei is already starting to build its own chips. My personal guess is the government would strategically invest resources in this field as well because it just seems to be too important.
Yes, Matlab.
They banned a university with a bunch of students from using a fancy calculator.
This is like banning the sales of Microsoft Excel to China.
The next interesting play, is what China will do to countermeasure this.
They will likely have to make their own Matlab program, thus eliminating all future profits for Matlab in China. And then, Matlab might even now have a new international competitor in this area.
Then, will China also ban Microsoft products in the future, in retaliation, after they make their own version of Excel.
If I were them, I would think that the American side is also next planning on banning the sales of Excel to China.
Unless we're fully heading towards 2 internets from the American side as well, I don't know how you would stop that from being downloaded in China. I would say they'll just go around the fire-wall...that kind of argument has not been persuasive as of late.
There's multiple competitors to matlab already that even some US schools use. It isn't as lopsided as Excel versus, uh... google sheets?
They have built their own applications and business processes, on top of American technology systems.
American companies have benefited handsomely from this engagement with China. Their stock prices reflect that, in how much they earned from China, and how much future potential they will earn from China.
What the USA government is doing here, is saying that America is no longer reliable. Essentially, that they can take away their products on a whim.
This puts the onus of the risk on China. Why should they continue to spend and invest in American technology, when it can all be taken away, and their applications on top of it will be useless.
Imagine if a Chinese company spent 5 years, and millions of dollars, to build an application on top of the Microsoft Windows framework. Then one day, the American government says: Hey, we will no longer allow you to use Windows.
Now, your expensive program, is wasted, and is now worth less than a paperweight. Even a paperweight is more useful than your program.
Will this happen? Who knows. But it is clearly a risk. And it must be a violation of some WTO trading rules somewhere. Because something like this, is clearly a monopolistic and predatory action, akin to an all-out economic war, designed to force the Chinese to their knees, and which would force the Chinese side to counter-react to.
The Trump administration has intentionally sabotaged the WTO's dispute resolution mechanism anyways, by blocking the appointment of judges: https://www.dw.com/en/wto-judge-blockage-could-prove-the-beg....
The US seems set on dismantling the post-war international order. That order reflected a form of enlightened self-interest, in which the US, though enormously powerful, subjected itself to various rules of international behavior and cooperation, with the understanding that the US would benefit if most countries followed those rules. The Trump administration takes a much more short-sighted, brute-force approach to international relations (ignore all rules and threaten everyone into giving you what you want). Maybe the most surprising thing is how little pushback he's gotten from inside the US. The US political class doesn't seem to care so much about the downfall of the post-war international order.
> Now, your expensive program, is wasted, and is now worth less than a paperweight. Even a paperweight is more useful than your program.
Didn't this essentially happen with Android? I'm not as familiar with that market but it seems there's no need for imaginary scenarios.
And private firms do this kind of thing to each other all the time. Google is notorious for suddenly dumping things people depend on. And in hardware it is a big headache as you can unexpectedly lose the source to components of your product.
Their reaction here has been paired with new movement in the South China Sea, changed messaging through proxy Government (Oli in Nepal and Pakistan at large) and claims over new land that has never been claimed by them before.
Xi is using the fallout from Corona as a way to impose China on countries that are distracted by the pandemic as of this time.
> If this was an actual calculated move to take significant amounts of territory the big guns would be firing by now.
That isn't how China works. They are well know for their salami slicing (https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/08/03/salami-slicing-in-the-s...) approach to expansionism. Their current actions are perfectly in line with previous attempts at expanding borders and signaling intent for armed invasion.
This pandemic started in China. But they somehow turned the table back to the US. The virus has done more damage to the US than China. The US leadership is incompetent. The government and the Fed are fixated on keeping the S&P 500 index. Tech investors make calls to build. Then, they invest in the next app trend. People seem to lose their moral compass. I think in the near future, the US won't be able to print money to fix its problems.
China seems to play a war of attrition. It engages the US in small conflicts and tends to drag them out. The US is the top dog. So it wants to win all of its battles. These conflicts distract the US from the big picture. The US is fighting fires on all fronts. Then China slowly makes gains.
There are interesting things about our relationship with China, but the lowest-possible-definition for 'conflict' is not it.
Breathe into a bag, dude. You and everyone else fear-mongering in here. China has a lot of talent, but they also consist of a government that controls its people and stifles their freedoms on every possible level. And because of that their innovation will always be constrained. An un-free people is an un-innovative people.
The US has one great thing that no other country has, and it's why we're still the only country to put a man on the moon, to land rockets backwards onto a floating platform, to continue to shift the landscape in transportation, and why Google and Facebook and Microsoft still dominate the net landscape, while the best China can do is make their garbage rip-offs and steal the hard-won intellectual property that we continue to churn out. It's also why Beijing often has a thick fog of pollution, and why you can protest, speak, and worship in this country without being thrown into a re-education camp.
Any guesses on what that thing is? That thing that keeps people in the US innovating and churning out fresh material that China can only steal? It's because the US is a country unified by a set of ideas, not borders drawn around a people group. The key governing concept that man is free to pursue their own happiness and shape their destiny.
Man irresistibly is drawn to freedom, and until the CCP releases its grasp on its citizens' freedom, their dominance is only an illusion. Stop pushing a narrative based on fear.
Somehow its inconceivable that any other country besides the mighty and noble 'Murca can innovate lol. Believe me, there are plenty of countries with far far more innovative public infrastructure like transport. Many countries with more "innovative" health systems in that you don't die or go bankrupt without insurance.
When all the xenophobia and fear stops the trickle of immigrants into the US, they will understand what drove innovation was not some magical freedom that 90% of democracies have, it was talented people from all over the globe.
How is China going to attract talented people from all over the globe?
Even with 1.5B people, they'll be competing with 6B who can't (and don't want to) join them and would prefer to join a Western country that will eventually give them naturalized citizenship and treat them somewhat as equals.
Note that during the time they're in a certain country, these experts are most likely paying taxes at the top tax bracket.
>these experts are most likely paying taxes at the top tax bracket.
Who cares. This is a thinly veiled attempt to say that any person's worth in a given society is approximately equal to how much they pay in taxes - which is insane, for a great many reasons.
Asia has more successful and less successful countries. Europe has more successful and less successful countries. Africa has more successful and less successful countries. The Americas have more successful and less successful countries. Countries with markets and liberal democracies consistently outperform countries without them. Totalitarian states can, in the short run, appear very successful--Germany and Russia both had stretches of this during their totalitarian eras--but it never lasts. Maybe I'm wrong and China is the first country to successfully perfect totalitarian single-party rule, but odds are that their growth and success will, in the end, be just as illusory as that of their forebears.
> controls its people and stifles their freedoms on every possible level
This is not at all the reality in China today. China is free enough: don’t talk too much about politics on social media, and don’t protest, and you’ll (probably) be just fine.
The biggest lesson I’ve taken from my years living in China is that you don’t need Freedom for people to prosper collectively (though I’m still convinced you need a free press as a check against power). Not everyone here is happy with single party government, but the vast majority are ok with it. There’s no revolt coming.
The bottom 50% of China are having their best string of decades in two thousand years. Freedom is great, but so is eating, and so is the promise of a much better life for your kids.
China’s getting its innovation game together too, they just need some time. I don’t see soft power happening any time soon though.
Thanks for the reasonable insight, you make some good points, especially that one which touches on the importance of hope. My question then is "how much leash is enough" if the dog is still under control of its authority? Even if the leash is 100ft. long, does the dog really experience freedom to explore the outer limits with the collar still tugging around its neck?
The greater the freedom (or maybe the perception of freedom ala Viktor Frankl), the greater the depths of hope and willingness to persevere through suffering, which is often a necessity at the blistering edges of innovation.
Then again, many of the world's early "innovations" were completed on the backs of controlled slave labor. Ignoring any jokes about "wage slavery", maybe you are right that a loosely-enslaved China is enough to achieve the controlling party's objectives, but I would still view that as a Pyrrhic victory.
I wouldn't call China loosely-enslaved; Chinese certainly don't see themselves as working for the Party, but for themselves, or for a prosperous China as a whole. Even though the information environment here is completely controlled, life really does feel free for the most part.
Is it really a Pyrrhic victory when a Chinese middle class family can have a comfortable, genuinely happy life? How is that family's happiness different from that of a family of westerners that comes here and lives happily for many years, as many of my friends have done?
But more to your point, it's true that America has some special sauce that 1) drives innovation faster than anywhere else in the world, and 2) attracts people to settle there from all over the world. But we see that Freedom is neither sufficient to become an innovation powerhouse (look at much of Europe) nor is it necessary (see Korea and Taiwan in the 70s and early 80s, which back then were very much not Free).
If you want to point to something as the reason why China is less innovative than the US on the whole, I'd point to the emphasis of rote memorization in the school system, and to the fact that college is kind of a joke, at least for the techies I've talked to. But that will slowly change, and even now China has a vibrant startup ecosystem.
The Party knows that for its long-term survival it must align its own interests with those of the people. And right now, to quote Singaporean academic Kishore Mahbubani in a recent Sinica podcast, "the primary goal of the Chinese Communist Party is to revive Chinese civilization." Of course, the party will insist that this be done on its own terms.
Human rights issues need not be addressed here because in practice they do not factor in. The US especially emphasizes these things because it loves to have the moral high ground (and I believe it does), but that unfortunately does very little to slow the rate at which the US, with its ineffective strategy over the last two decades, is ceding the geopolitical high ground.
The success of China and people in the West increasingly saying things like "But do we really need freedom of speech that some people don't like?" makes me question this claim. Countries go through cycles of freedom and intense restriction. People are willing to fight and die for both sides. It's just a matter of who's more persuasive at the moment, and in the case of China, young people know their grandparents and even parents were laboring away on farms with holes for toilets while they're driving BMWs and buying new iPhones every year. Play a couple videos of chaotic protests in other countries on the news and they've made up their mind as to what they prefer.
It's easy for China to sweep away their problems. Other countries have also been nervously saying "China will collapse any day now! They're building empty cities!" It's not happening, but people think it is.
Treating Chinese failure as an inevitability is only making one's own country weak. They need to be seen as equal to the US and just as ready to economically hammer countries in the same way the US likes to. America's biggest advantage right now is cultural. People like American media and it helps give people a decent impression of the US. Nobody knows about China. Now that China is buying up Western media companies, that'll change in the coming decades.
That's not ok in HN comments, so please don't post like that. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Also, please don't take HN threads further into nationalistic flamewar and please omit generic ideological rhetoric. It leads to repetitive, tedious discussion on the internet because forum comments are much too shallow a medium to get anywhere new with it.
"back" is incorrect - not a native English speaker. Who says Chinese disinformation doesn't need to reach as far as ycombinator news?
I agree with little to none of your strategic assessment. China has come a long ways - it's no longer a paper tiger. Let's say it's now a reinforced cardboard tiger. China's demographic profile now skews _older_ than the US.
Remember, Taiwan and South Korea performed well during the pandemic, and they're both democracies.
I'm terrified of a China-dominated world, but by no means do I think the U.S. has done anything to deserve keeping its position.
It was so forceful, that it was effectively bloodless and an overwhelming portion of the "annexed" populace has actively supported it.
Meanwhile situation in Taiwan is drastically different. Pro-mainland faction is really weak and can not be used to provide sufficient support for quiet absorption. And since Taiwan has deep military connections with USA for many decades, any military intervention will inevitably escalate into a major military conflict.
The only scenario in which something like that can happen is civil-war-level turmoil in USA. Probability of which, worryingly, is noticeably bigger than zero.
That seems like an unusual perspective.
If by "bloodless" you mean "lots of people died, but nowhere near as many as a world war" though, then sure.
For the "actively supported", where are you getting that information? My impression (from friends in Kiev) is that it's universally condemned.
>For the "actively supported", where are you getting that information?
Directly from Crimeans. I have visited Crimea last year as a tourist and talked with them personally (in Massandra and Alushta, btw the wine is really great, recommend trying it). Try watching 2014 videos, for example this one is before Russian forces have became active:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atm0W5wA2y4
If you don't trust my anecdotal experience, then how about "The Crimea conundrum: legitimacy and public opinion after annexation" published in the Eurasian Geography and Economics journal? Or how about "To Russia With Love" article published in Foreign Affairs? They both confirm strong local support in favor of the transfer.
>My impression (from friends in Kiev) is that it's universally condemned.
I hope you understand that your friend quite probably is really biased regarding this issue, right? Always try looking outside of the media narrative (one may call it soft propaganda), usually world issues are far more complex than the version painted by media.
The irony is strong with this one.
I think you are trying to confuse others with numbers describing the Donbas conflict, not the "annexation" as implied in your message. A really low effort fallacy I must say.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Crimea_by_the_Ru...
Wow. So, you going to claim this isn't relevant or somehow correct then either?
First time I hear this. Source?
Whereas in Taiwan, recent survey shows only 4% identified as Chinese and 90% are willing to defend Taiwan if "China uses force against Taiwan for unification"
Small nitpick: has US invaded Syria in your opinion?
Yes, Russia obviously supports Donbas republics, but most of those republics military consists of Ukrainian citizens. In a way it's similar to how US supports Kurds and "moderate opposition". Such situation is really common for civil wars, but I don't think "invasion" is a correct word to use here.
Russia literally claimed Ukrainian territory. How is "invasion" in any way the wrong word?
Per latest census not under Russia control, it was 60% for Russians, and rest were Ukranians and Tatars. It is not overwhelmingly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Crimea#Ethnici...
I am more than certain that if Russian language was a second official language in Ukraine and rights of minorities were properly respected, then Crimea would have been still part of Ukraine and war in Donbas wouldn't have happened.
Plus note, that a significant number of people in Crimea (and in Ukraine) are of mixed blood, so they can easily change their ethnicity based on the current political situation.
I think protests and exodus were result of TV propaganda, amount of disinformation was tremendeus, though Crimeans probably got better life within richer Russia.
And even before that, Ukraine is a country in which 30% consider Russian a native language (according to the official census, so I consider it a lower bound) and more than 80% prefer to use it in daily live (the numbers should be lower now for obvious reasons, but the point still stands). It's simply ridiculous to not have Russian as an official language in such conditions. For comparison in Canada only 20% know French and still it's a full-fledged official language.
> It's simply ridiculous to not have Russian as an official language in such conditions.
They allowed Russian to be official regional language in regions where more than 10% population speaks Russian. Sounds reasonable to me.
Window of opportunity was caused by messed up government in Ukraine, which couldn't produce any resistance against Russia's military invasion.
It's exactly the same day when active protests in Crimea and Donbas have started. Yes, technically the law was still active, but it was just a delay due to the powerful backlash and people understood well intention of those who came into power.
>Sounds reasonable to me.
Wow... I guess let's agree to disagree here. Because for me a situation in which 80% people speak a language in daily life, but it's not an official one, looks more suitable for an occupation, than for a normal state. Can you name any other world country with a similar situation? (IIRC only Baltic states come somewhat close)
And let's be honest, "regional language status" was just breadcrumbs. Russian was systematically discriminated as a matter of state policy starting from TV and ending with schools, with situation only worsening over time.
>Window of opportunity was caused by messed up government in Ukraine, which couldn't produce any resistance against Russia's military invasion.
Don't forget about heavily demoralized military (and the protests have played a major part here), which didn't believe in the new government, and most of which accepted Russian terms and got integrated into its military. Also some say that the new government has intentionally allowed the situation around Crimea and Donbas to degrade, so a lot of pro-Russian electorate would be cut off from elections. But I guess gross incompetence is usually a better explanation.
Pure speculation.
> in which 80% people speak a language in daily life,
Citation needed.
> Don't forget about heavily demoralized military (and the protests have played a major part here), which didn't believe in the new government, and most of which accepted Russian terms and got integrated into its military.
Pure speculation.
> Citation needed.
According to Wikipedia, in May 2013 82% of respondents spoke Russian at home.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Crimea#Ethnici...
Revoking of what? Russian language is protected by Constitution of Ukraine, as language of minority. Did you read what you posted?
> looks more suitable for an occupation, than for a normal state.
You are right, Crimea was occupied by Russian Empire and USSR. Natives (Tatars, Goths, Greeks, Italians, Turks, Ukrainians) are exhaled or exterminated.
> Don't forget about heavily demoralized military (and the protests have played a major part here)
Russian propaganda, in Russian language, played major role. Russian Federation planned to attack Ukraine since 2008, preparing for occupation of Crimea and creation of "Newrussia". As former officer of intelligence, I knew about planned protests controlled by RF (AKA "Шатун") in 2012.
Russia does not want to lose its warm-water ports, or to be bordered by hostile countries. If Mexico made serious noises about joining an alliance with China, we'd see regime change before the week were out.
There are repercussions within the spectrum between hand wringing and nuclear war. Severe economic sanctions come to mind.
And from a realist perspective, the rest of the world is more likely to care about Taiwan than Crimea.
It would hardly be the first time that a government failed to understand the situation they found themselves in.
But now both USA and Russia have far less nukes (and with smaller yields) so now the effect of a full USA-Russia nuclear exchange would be much smaller - but we are not even talking about that; we're talking about China, which has something like 250 warheads (contrast to ~45000 warheads that USSR used to have, it's more than a hundredfold difference) - it's a sizeable deterrent, but it's not mutually assured destruction. MAD was the doctrine between USA and USSR or Russia; MAD does not apply for any other nuclear powers - China, France, UK, India, etc. A nuclear exchange with them is "only" mass murder, but nowhere close to an extinction level event.
Maybe I've watched Dr. Strangelove too many times, but everyone knows that flinging all of your nukes at someone kills you too (the "Doomsday Device"), so what I'd expect to see in WWIII is two things: 1) the clash of a ton of new technologies where we have really no idea what beats what, and 2) strategic, low-yield nukes used against blue-water navies and ports.
There's proxy wars like we saw in Korea and Vietnam during the Cold War. There's cyber attacks and other acts of sabotage carefully cloaked in plausible deniability (for example the 1982 Siberian pipeline explosion, Stuxnet, the attacks on Sony attributed to North Korea). There's limited wars where there's actual open fighting, but neither side is prepared to escalate further (think of the Falklands War, the War of Attrition between Israel and Egypt, or any number of peacekeeping actions by the UN or NATO).
Total war between major powers has gone away, but war is here to stay.
It's a total institutional failure.
Killing TPP was the correct result.
See John Pilger, “The Coming War on China”
How does one get in the situation? Kennedy suggested working towards a world where it wouldn't matter who had the largest economy, all countries could compete peacefully, etc. but at least one person in 1963 didn't think that a worthwhile project.